Madera County, CA Outdoor Lighting: Light Trespass & Shielding (2026)

120 is the county's parking facility design chapter, and it treats light spill as a design standard enforced through the site plan and building permit process rather than through a numeric footcandle limit. " The same section layers in a second protection for neighbors: subsection (H)(3) requires a continuous six-foot masonry screening wall wherever a parking facility sits within one hundred feet of residentially zoned or developed property, and directs that "landscaping shall be installed in such a manner as to limit glare and light impacts" along that shared boundary.

Multifamily projects get case-by-case flexibility on screening design "depending on access, location of parking, lighting, and design," subject to the zoning administrator's approval. Because the hooding rule in subsection (J) is written to cover "any parking facility or paved area" without the single-family carve-out that applies elsewhere in the same section, exterior lighting on a residential driveway or parking apron is not obviously excluded from the hooding requirement. Compliance is checked at the front end: subsection (M) requires all parking facilities, including their lighting, to be installed under an approved site plan and building or grading permit before final inspection and issuance of an occupancy permit, giving the planning and engineering departments a chance to catch a non-conforming fixture before a project opens.